The literature does not speak
with one
voice about narcissism.
It depends on what one has read and which theory one follows.
Consequently, the concept is not fit for the courts.
Anyone can explain it as one wishes - if one has read anything about it.
Factually, the concept is developed dialectically in the literature, just as it
should be in science:
one discovers something, another reacts to it, and so on and so on.

Freud was not the first to use the
concept - Havelock Ellis did in 1898 - but Freud was
the first to use it in clinical practice. He sought an explanation, a theory and
a methodology for treatment.

Crucial in Freud's theory is the libido,
lust in broad sense; it is also something like spirit of life, vitality
or positive vital energy. This is an instinct-driven force in the human, which is nearly automatic. So, Freud's vision is deterministic, which
means that certain processes unfold without interference of the human
will. If this is true for narcissism, how can one heal it? Freud saw the
narcissistic neurosis as untreatable.

The libido searches for an
object to relate, an object-relationship. Nowadays, we prefer
to speak about a subject, because usually it concerns a human, especially
the mother - maybe also a teddy bear for the baby. Freud speaks about an object,
because he does not refer to the real mother as a person, but to the inner
image of the mother, the mother figure. Such figures are called objects.
The real people they represent are subjects.

Primary narcissism
is according Freud the result if one does not find such an object, an
object-relationship. Unconsciously, the young child chooses itself as
object of the libido. This can happen by external factors such as the absence
of a real mother or a caregiver, but it can also happen from the inside, if the ego
of the child is defective and the child is not able to search for, find and to
attach itself to an object.
.

Secondary
narcissismwill appear if the child has an object relationship, but wants to go
back to the primary narcissism, the libido relation to the self. This
child has no normal loving relationships, only narcissistic object
relationships. These objects are treated as if they were inner
objects, thus elements of the inner self of the child - perhaps suppressed
aspects of the self, for example 'the naughty child'.
Secondary narcissism will also appear if the child has a relationship with
the mother, but loses the mother. The child cannot cope with
this and returns to the primarily form, the love for the self.

The two famous books of Anna Freud
(& Dorothy Burlingham) were obligatory literature, not translated, for us
first-year students at the university in 1963 for the first exam in the first
term. Many years later, when I had a job as master at the
university, it was scarcely possible (because of the rules regarding how many books a
student had to read) to place the same books, translated, on the
literature list for the final examination. Both books have given me important
insights into the psyche of troublesome children.

Anna Freud broadly followed her father's thinking. However, she
turned from seeing drives
as the most powerful force to seeing traumas as the most important factor.
This line of thinking has been followed quite consistently by others ever since she wrote her
books.

She had no other choice, working with very young children who had lost their
mothers and so were in great trouble. She had a clear insight and great ability
to imagine the minds of these very young children - so she is a good example for
a first-year student. Babies and toddlers defend themselves against
emotions they cannot cope with: they develop defense mechanisms.

The word "mechanism" refers to the deterministic vision of her father Sigmund Freud, but
her writing as a whole evinces sympathy for the child who has scarcely a choice, but the nevertheless
has
something to choose.

I use the term 'defense method' and I also see a possibility to choose
for a method. This agrees with the literature and with my
thesis, in which I prefer the possibility of choosing one's action. I reject
the behavioralist vision for the human, even for the young.

Anyway, the child has to do
something with the situation. A defense becomes an inevitable evil. This is
the theme of Anna Freud's writing. One of the defenses she mentions is auto-eroticism, which resembles narcissism.

She, mutatis mutandis,
holds the same. She does not see a
trauma from the external world as the core of the problem for the young child but
rather a drive from the inside world, the death
instinct. This is the drive to kill which we see most fully expressed in the human's relation to
the animals, if I may say so.

This instinct frightens the child. In her clinical practice, she sees that children project this scary drive onto objects, inner figures or psychological
objects of humans or animals outside themselves. So, the children are very
afraid of figures in the outside world or of feelings in the inside world. The
avoidance of these fears will, in turn, rule the child's inner self.

One of the solutions is, again, auto-eroticism, which resembles narcissism. There is another
aspect of it which resembles narcissism: rejecting certain vital aspects of
the self and projecting these outside the self, for instance, aggression. The
child splits this part from the self and projects it to outside objects.
Just as one describes narcissism: the human beholds the good or grandiose side
of the self and suppresses, hides and projects the rejected aspects of the self.

I will take up Melanie Klein's
writings in another essay where I refer to her famous essay from 1940-1945 about
the Oedipal rumble.

Fairbairn describes the
narcissistic child who withdraws into itself and does not want to make really
contact with humans. Originally, every child seeks contact outside itself. The force
behind this is not, as Freud said, a sexual one or a libido, but according
Fairbairn (who uses the same term libido) a fundamental wish, a vital
energy to live and survive. But if there is nobody available or suitable,
then the child directs this vital energy towards itself. This can be the case
for hospitalized children or in the case of mothers who give no emotional
response to their child.

Fairbairn does not follow the
deterministic model of Freud. There is no drive or instinct, there is a wish and
there is a trauma. There is no mechanism, there is a choice. The child can, just
like Anna Freud said, chose between several paths. One child looks for a
substitute, another is content with its thumb or another compensation, but
others completely abandon the wish to live. These are the children with an
"anti-libidinal ego". These children reject the vital wish to live,
and so life itself. They withdraw into their own inner fortress. The therapist's
task is to make a breach to reach the child and to entice it, to go to the
outside, and make relationships with people outside itself.

Winnicott follows Fairbairn's line,
going on to the next step. The child withdraws behind a fašade. This
fašade looks beautiful, but is not genuine. It is this fašade which makes
contact with outside people, not the real child who hides behind it. This
can be the case for babies who encounter an emotional vacuum in the mother or
who have very depressive mothers. The fašade mirrors the mother and reflects,
for example, the 'always nice child'. It banishes the other aspects of the self
to the fortress or the shadow side. So, the ego of the child has been split. The
child does not act out of the real self, but from the fašade. This fašade
has to be maintained at any cost. Winnicott describes this process as inevitable
and automatic, without any choice, thus deterministic.

Frtiz Redl describes narcissistic children.
Here he sees an ego distortion. These children see only themselves, not the outside reality, and surely not their own limits. Well,
they see reality, but they interpret it in their own way. They do not learn from
experiences or from other people. 'What happens to them, will never occur to
me.' They are not amenable to logic or to relationships, which makes therapy
very difficult. Their infantile narcissism is the basis of their personality. A real relationship, especially a loving one, will threaten this basis. Thus, they
keep relationships at bay and they deny the best intentions of the adult. To maintain their interpretation of
reality, they
provoke punishment and rejection.

Interestingly, Redl also describes
(1966, pp 110 & 118) the narcissism of the staff members of his
children's home. Not only children have this kind of trouble. Redl refers to
statements such as, "See how good my therapy works!", whereas any
change can only be made by the child itself, from within.

Frances Tustin devotes
attention to the autistic child. She describes what occurs as a heavy neurotic
depression, after which the child withdraws completely into itself, nearly as in a
psychotic depression. The inner fortress of these children does not represent a
locked up wish for vitality, but a dark emptiness; not a restrained force but a
lack of force. Thus, these children depend on an external structure, a shield
around them because they lack an inner framework. A therapist first offers
such a shield and then tries to re-vitalize the vital forces, the wish to live
and to enjoy life; then the therapist helps to build an inner framework to make
the shield superfluous later on.

Autism is, in this view, a severe
form of narcissism. The difference is that the autistic child does not fight
anymore and does not approach other people, whereas the more mildly-narcissistic
child still needs other people to manipulate, to fight against, to impress them
with his or her fašade, which in turn has to be actively maintained. The real
inner world of the latter must kept hidden and even the self may not be
conscious of its existence. All in all, a quite active process is going on in
the soul of a mildly-narcissistic child.

Just like Redl, Bettelheim sees
narcissism in his young patients, and in his students. These
students had correctly learned the psychoanalytic theory and its concepts, but
with its help they only looked at others, never themselves. This is
typical for narcissism; it is the counterpart of self-knowledge. Remember
the prophecy of the blind seer: as soon as Narcissus knows his real self,
there will be no Narcissus. So, the students had to undergo a
psychoanalysis themselves before they were able to help other people.

Hommes [Link
to Dutch
text] describes for us the interaction with children who have been
disappointed in their first relationships. He encounters a basis of distrust and a
keeping relationships. If there is a relationship, it has to be confirmed
again and again. Of their own accord, these children tend to, as he calls it,
'fatal forms of interaction', with which they maintain their isolation, their cocoon,
fortress or ivory tower. The therapist should know to help them form real
relationships.